a look at ON1 Photo Raw

More than just an upgrade, ON1 Photo Raw is a redesign

ON1 Photo Raw is more than a redesign of the previous ON1 Photo 10. This, soon to be released, software is a complete overhaul of everything you know about ON1’s product line. It is a complete workflow solution that revolutionizes the future of Raw editing. For many, it could be the answer we have been searching for for a long time.

What answer would that be?

An all in one software solution that bridges the gap between lightning fast image browsing and Raw image editing. Couple in the capability of effect based editing on a RAW file and you have a real winner on the horizon. It is kinda like a hybrid blend of Adobe Bridge, Camera Raw, and Photoshop all boiled together in one big pot of savory image editing awesomeness!

Over the last few months, I have been working with a developers copy, not a beta, but a stripped version of the future software. I have had the luxury of visiting with the folks at ON1 and watching how they operate and what they have been doing to make their already great product even better. I will even be visiting with them during their live launch event answer questions and discussing all things ON1 Photo Raw.

f.64 Academy and f.64 Elite are the brainchildren of Blake Rudis. While he is a landscape photographer he is most passionate about post-processing images in Photoshop and mentoring others.

For Blake, it is less about the art and more about the process. He dives deep into difficult topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside the box thinking.

24 Comments

Tony Woods
on November 11, 2016 at 9:37 am

Nice introduction. We are always told to work on a copy of our RAW image so, what happens if we want to work on the same image, perhaps in PS alone, and start with the RAW image. Will it have the ON1 processing already done?

That is not a problem. If you open the RAW file from anything but ON1 it will be the original RAW file with no edits. However, you may edit in Photo Raw then open it in PS from Photo Raw to make any adjustments and save it as a PSD, TIFF, JPEG, etc..

Thanks for the look see for the new On1. Two questions have arisen for me.

Question #!.) All things done in On1 write to a side-car or .XMP file. What do you do, or how do you handle these little files in your hard drive storage? (side note: I convert all to Adobe DNG files so I don’t have to bother with the .XMP files).

Question #2): You stated that we will be working on the RAW file, so is this non-destructive editing and how is it so?

1. I am looking in my folder of edits from ON1 and I do not see a sidecar that goes with it. I will talk to the ON1 guys, but it appears ON1 Photo Raw is storing the information, maybe somewhere within the file or program.

2. It is completely non-destructive. If you open the image in Photoshop or ACR or LR you will not see the ON1 edits. At anytime you can say “reset all” and it will reset all of the adjustments you made to the photo.

Hi Blake,
Thanks for the brief intro, I am looking forward to getting my hands on the program too!

When you were showing the filtering capability by “starring” photos, etc. I noticed that there was no badging on the thumbnail that indicates that the photo had a filter applied to it. How will I know what ranking or color coding I’ve applied to the images?
Thanks,
Dave Steckler

Since I already had the current version of ON1 Photo I upgraded with the pre-release offer anticipating that what you showed would indeed be the situation: a way to quickly manage a large number of images (my recent six week travel excursion netted 150GB of raw images) and make most of the necessary adjustments with some more effects capabilities than Lightroom offers. One of the problems with Lightroom is that once you move into the adjustment gradients and brushes, it’s all on the same layer so it’s very difficult comprehend the incremental changes I’ve made. With Photoshop it is easy to turn on/off individual adjustment layers to see the impact and track not only before and after but see the progression.

Essentially, this appears to be a way to layer ON1 effects at the RAW workflow level, thus speeding and simplifying the workflow steps although one advantage Lightroom and ACR has is that you can take those adjustments into PS as a smart object and have the ability to ‘re-edit- underneath the PS layers.

I think the main questions people have is:
a. will the various plug ins we use be accessible in ON1 Raw.
b. can we access ON1 Raw from Lightroom. If we go the opposite route Lightroom won’t have the changes in it’s catalog so we’d need to refresh.resync the catalog.
c. if we bypass LR altogether for a work flow will ON1 Raw and PS ‘talk to each other’.

I’m sure this won’t be the last version of ON1 Raw we’ll see but it looks like the start of a decent upgrade to their product. I doubt it will ever replace PS though.

Blake, thanks for the intro to this new program. However,I agree with Marcio…nothing more to gain other than more “effects”. Blake, I’m really enjoying your Zone express panel…it’s a game changer for me. Together with Photoshop 2017, it’s all I think I’ll need. I have the Nik plugins which gives all the ‘effects’ I need as well. I do have Lightroom and am exploring its use in my workflow as opposed to acr/bridge. As you say, it’s another “tool” for the toolbox, but can’t see (at this stage anyway) any use for it at the present time.

Not sure what the difference is between ON1 RAW and other RAW processors such as photoshop or Lightroom. PS and LR have offered presets in RAW for years. I was hoping for more photoshop type editing in ON1 RAW.
Look forward to seeing the release

Big question for me is how you move from one computer to a new one. I typically switch/rebuild PCs every year and so far most programs are touchy to say the least. Any idea how to migrate to a new PC with the software without losing the non-destructive edits? Big hassles or simple and straight forward?

Great question. It should be as simple as moving your photos from one machine to another. The edits are saved in sidecar xmp files. As long as you transfer the folders over with all of the pictures the edits should be seamless. The categorizing and cataloging such as stars and colors are saved in the exif data. It shouldn’t be a problem at all.